June 15, 2017

NARCISSISM FOR BEGINNERS

by
Martine McDonagh

208
pages, Unbound

Review
by Pat Black

Sonny’s
20, lives in Redondo Beach, and he’s just found out he’s a millionaire. It’s bildungsroman time!

Martine
McDonagh’s third novel is a young-guy-on-a-journey story, but if you’ve stuck
with her career so far – and we have – then you’ll know that it won’t be your
typical voyage from youth into young manhood.

Narcissism For Beginners
is the story of Sonny, a British/American teenager with a very odd personal
history. He’s looked after in Southern California by Thomas, a man of mystery
who has stepped into the role of guardian in place of the lad’s biological father,
Guru Bim, a cult leader.

As
Sonny reaches his 21st birthday, a Richie Rich scenario unfolds, and
he discovers he has inherited a cash sum as long as a phone number (complete
with international dialling code prefix).

Now
at this point, most of us would smile wryly, maybe with a twitch in our eye, as
we consider the ensuing carnage if we’d had an unspendable wodge of cash
deposited in our bank accounts on the morning of our 21st birthday. I
think I’d still have a pop at a lifelong sesh these days if fate was to bestow
that kind of luck on me, with thanks and best wishes from Euromillions, and I
am getting seriously auld.

But
Sonny’s different. He’s already gotten those urges out of his system, not to
mention a fair bit of meth - thanks in no small part to Narcotics Anonymous, as
well as the guidance of Thomas, who seems to have followed a path of mellowship
and sobriety in concurrence with his young charge.

Sonny
is… we are almost astonished to learn… quite a conscientious and sensitive kid.

Still
got some lip on him, though. We wouldn’t quite take to him if he didn’t.

Sonny
decides he wants to find out more about his father, the great Guru Bim, as well
as the shadow-play figure of his mother, who he hasn’t seen since he was
abducted from his home in Scotland when he was barely old enough for school.

He
jets off from Redondo Beach to the UK, armed with a series of letters from
Thomas, some pop culture references and that great big stack of money. Chief
among his cleaner obsessions is Shaun Of
The Dead – a movie which is proving to be, ironically, deathless in
cultural terms (and also has a curiously large following across the Atlantic
considering it is so virulently British). Sonny is undertaking a pilgrimage to
check out Shaun Of The Dead’s
locations – but really, he wants to find out the who, where, what and why of
his life.

It
doesn’t do to have too many blank pages in one’s own history book.

This
is not an action and adventure novel. Nor will you find much in the way of sex
and drugs, other than mentions of times past. This was an act of bravery in
itself by McDonagh; it would have been easy to side-step questions of Sonny’s
identity and provenance by simply layering on the sleaze, Skins-style. Our hero is mainly following up on an old address
book, meeting people who were part of Bim’s cult in the early days, as well as
people who were involved with his mysterious father before he became the guru.
Sonny records the conversations he has with these people in some diverse British
locations, including London, Devon and the west coast of Scotland.

Barring
some wry observations about one crazy lady in particular who was part of Guru
Bim’s “shaking” cult, Sonny is mostly content to let them speak. In between
chapters, episodic letters from Thomas address this epistolary style more
directly – but there is danger in these pages, even murder, as the secrets of
the past are revealed. And there are some absolute jaw-droppers.

Narcissism For
Beginners
is a journey back in time, looking at the sometimes convoluted, sometimes
downright insane paths our very existences have followed, many of them taken on
our behalf before we were even a slight dreaming-dog tremor in our fathers’
legs. The book points out some uncomfortable truths: that sometimes our own
flesh and blood are an embarrassment at best, downright evil at worst. That
your favourite uncle might have committed terrible crimes. And that some people
we only shared a living space with have bestowed kindness and grace upon us to
rival the seraphs.

The
ending completely wrong-footed me, and asks that difficult question: Who among
our family, friends and acquaintances really matters? If you had only five
phone calls left to make before your life ended, who would you ring?

The
book left me wanting more. I wonder if Sonny’s journey will continue. Even if
not, we can only marvel at his good fortune, and feel desperately sad for his
past.